Rasawala Chana (Gujarati Saucy Chickpea Curry)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 

Week 3: Gujarati Cuisine 

Day 18: R for Rasawala Chana with Rotlis

Today's Gujarati dish is a simple, protein packed curry made with black chana or chickpeas. Rasawala means saucy and in this dish black chickpeas are cooked in a tangy and sweet sauce.

The only time taking part of this dish is the soaking and boiling the chana. The actual cooking time takes about 15 minutes. Served with rotis or even rice, this is a delicious and comforting dish. I made rotlis to serve with this chana.

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Vegan Tuna Sandwich Wrap & The Florida Keys

Disclosure: I was selected as a member of Honest Cooking for this sponsored post on behalf of The Florida Keys. Some of the content and photos of Florida Keys have been provided by the sponsor.

Sunday was the first day of Spring and it SNOWED!! Oh I wish I was in a warmer place, how about Key West. It sounds just like heaven now. It was a favorite destination for Ernest Hemingway, Jimmy Buffett, and many more.

I have never been to Key West but I have heard a lot about its beautiful palm lined streets, it's distinct mixture of cultures and the island is not only home to a strong seafood scene, but a tantalizing fusion of cuisines. At night, the streets lite up with vibrant sidewalk cafes that lure in passersby with delicious scents of their specialties. Live music and hopping bars are the perfect pairings to watch the sunset into the Gulf of Mexico.

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Chickpea Sundal

Blogging Marathon# 62: Week 2/ Day 3

Theme: Salads

Dish: Chickpea Sundal

For the last day of this week's blogging marathon, I have a traditional Indian salad that is usually served during festivals.

I love chickpeas in any form and this recipe with coconut and minimum spices is easy to make and is one of my favorites. I made it for Sankranthi along with pulihora and bobbatlu, for prasadam that day.

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Greek Cucumber and Chickpea Salad

Blogging Marathon# 62: Week 2/ Day 2

Theme: Salads

Dish: Greek Cucumber Salad

Today's salad is extremely easy to put together, very filling and absolutely refreshing. I made this salad along with Greek Lemony Dill rice that I posted last month. It is a great to serve as a side dish or on its own for a light meal.

Recipe is from Cooking Light magazine. I wasn't a big fan of dill for a long time. I thought it had a very strong flavor that was overpowering. But recently I started liking it quite a bit, especially when used in Greek style dishes like tzatziki sauce or Spanakopitas.

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Vegetable Makhani Rice

Blogging Marathon# 58: Week 1/ Day 2

Theme: Bring on your Rice

Dish: Vegetable Makhani Rice

After yesterday's South Indian rice dish, I have this North Indian rice dish. Makhani gravy is a reddish tomato based gravy made with butter and cream (hence the name makhani), commonly used in North Indian dishes. It is very popular on restaurant menus and paneer makhani is quite famous.

Here the makhani gravy is mixed with basmati rice to make this creamy and delicious rice that is equally good to perfect to serve at dinner parties or as a quick weeknight meal. Recipe is from a Telugu cooking show.

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Sweet Potato-Chickpea Burger

This is one of the simplest veggie burger I've ever made. It is hearty, delicious and is not mushy or crumbly like many other homemade veggie burgers. I saw Tricia Yearwood make these on her show 'Trisha's Southern Kitchen' on Food Network. I knew right away that I had to make these.

Roasting the sweet potato makes it take much better than just boiling. This roasted sweet potato is mashed along with chickpeas, flour and breadcrumbs to make the burgers. It is flavored with some red chili powder, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Feel free to to add some spices, like ground cumin or coriander or herbs to add more flavor and taste. But I thought they tasted great just as is.

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Chickpea Croquettes with Tzatziki Sauce

As I was looking for dishes to serve with tzatziki sauce, I saw these chickpea croquettes recipe in Vegetarian Times magazine. Original recipe was not served with tzatziki, but I thought they tasted great with the addition of the creamy yogurt sauce.

I found adding chickpea flour (besan) and whole chickpeas in these croquettes was quite interesting. The whole chickpeas give these croquettes a hearty texture.

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Classic Hummus

I love hummus. I use it as a spread on sandwiches, wraps and even made a bread with it. But never made hummus myself at home -- I wonder why!! All it needs is 2 main ingredients -- chickpeas and tahini and that's all you need to make this creamy and delicious dip.
Hummus is known as the poor man's food in the Middle East and it is a versatile dish. It can be served as a snack or with any meal of the day -- it is served for breakfast for Israel. It is an easy and delicious way to add protein to the diet.

This recipe is from Vegetarian Times magazine. The recipe is a little unusual in that it uses warm chickpeas -- the author says the heat helps cut the garlic's acidity. It is best to make the hummus from scratch using dried chickpeas (instructions on how to cook chickpeas from scratch are included at the end of the post).

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Tabbouleh, Hummus and Pita Platter

Buffet on Table: Week 1 -- Combos from Countries

Day 4: Middle East -- Tabbouleh, Hummus & Pita Platter

Our next stop for an amazing International Combo meal is in the Middle East. This Tabbouleh, Hummus, pita and falafel platter has been something I have planned to make for a very long time. Finally I made them all for the Mega marathon :-)

Tabbouleh is a traditional Middle Eastern dish. There are many versions for this bulgur wheat salad. This recipe is from Vegetarian Times magazine and I'm assuming it is from Lebanon since it is more about the herbs and less about the bulgur grain itself.

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Lentil Chickpea Burger

Blogging Marathon# 54: Week 4/ Day 2

Theme: Lentils -- 3 Ways

Dish: Lentil Chickpea Burger

For Day 2 of this week's marathon, I have a protein rich burger made with a combination of lentils and chickpeas. Homemade veggie burgers usually don't hold up too well on the grill, but these burgers didn't fall apart on the grill and tasted awesome after grilling.

Recipe is from Vegetarian Times magazine and it was originally a Greek flavored burger, but I changed it to more of an Indian flavored one. If you want to, change up the herbs and spices and make up your own version.

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Methi Chana Pulao (Fenugreek leaves and Chickpea Pilaf)

Blogging Marathon# 50: Week 2/ Day 2

Theme: Methi Dishes

Dish: Methi Chana Pulao

Apart from curries, lentil dishes and rotis, methi is great to use in rice dishes too. I have made spicy pulao with methi and paneer before, but today's pulao is quite mild with just a few whole spices. This recipe is my adaptation of my cousin's methi pudina rice. She usually serves the rice with a spicy curry, but I added some chickpeas to the rice to make it wholesome.

This is a one-pot dish and can be whipped up in no time (if you have the methi leaves all prepped and ready to go, that is). I usually store my cleaned methi leaves in an airtight container in the fridge once I get back from the store and then use them as needed during the week.

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Amritsari Chole (Spicy Chickpea Curry)

Blogging Marathon# 47: Week 3/ Day 2
Theme: Recipes from Menu Card
Dish: Amritsari Chole

We are going to order some 'Amritsari Chole' from Puranmal restaurant. There are a ton of chickpea curry variations from the Punjab/ Haryana region and I'm sure each household has there own version of these curries. So when I saw Amritsari Chole on the menu, I wanted to see how different it was from the other chole recipes.

Amritsari chole is a very flavorful and delicious curry. I've never cooked chickpeas with tea leaves and this is one of the essential steps for this curry. The tea leaves make the chickpeas a deep dark color, but the taste of tea is not very prominent and doesn't change the taste of the dish.

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Chole-Aloo Tikki Chaat (Chickpea & Potato Pattie Chaat)

Blogging Marathon# 47: Week 1/ Day 1
Theme: North Indian Starters
Dish: Chole-Aloo Tikki Chaat

We are starting our last marathon for this year and my theme for this week is 'North Indian Starters'. Starters/ Appetizers are not really my forte because most of Indian starters are deep fried and I try to stay away from deep frying. When I saw this theme, I knew this will give me a chance to research on North Indian starters that I can add to my repertoire.
Valli hinted that we can made Chaats under this theme, so for the first day I have a very filling and delicious Chole-Aloo Tikki Chaat. I think this can be served as a first course for a simple North Indian meal.

Recipe is from Tarla Dalal's site. Delicious potato-pea patties are served with spicy and tangy chickpea gravy, then topped with crunchy sev and yummy mint & tamarind chutnies. This is a dish with lots of textures and flavors. A must try for all chaat lovers.

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Uganda -- G-Nut Sauce (Ugandan Peanut Sauce with Chickpeas)

BM# 44: A-Z Cooking Series -- Around the World in 30 days

Country: U for Uganda

Dish: G-Nut Sauce
We are going to Uganda today. It is a landlocked country in East Africa. Ugandan cuisine is influenced by English, Arab, Asian and especially Indian cuisines. Main dishes are usually centered on a sauce or stew of groundnuts/ peanuts, beans or meat.The starch traditionally comes from Ugali (maize meal) in the North and East or Matoke (boiled and mashed green banana) in Central, or a Millet Ugali in the west.
Many tribes in Uganda have their own specialty dish or delicacy. Many dishes include starchy vegetables like Cassava, yam and African sweet potato. Various leafy greens are grown in Uganda.Fruits such as pineapple and bananas are plentiful.

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Andhra style Greens & Chickpea Curry (Chukkakura & Gongura Senagala Kura)

It is always amazing to see how fast kids bond with their grandparents even if they never met them before. My in-laws were visiting us for couple of weeks and they were seeing my little one for the first time. But it took her just a few hours to get to know them and in no time she was playing with them as if she's known them forever.

So my kids had a great time playing and having fun with the grandparents and we had great time enjoying the yummy dishes my MIL cooked. She made some new and interesting dishes and I made sure I clicked them and wrote the recipes down, so I don't forget. 

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Broccoli Chickpea Salad

Blogging Marathon# 41: Week 2/ Day 3
Theme: Picnic Hamper Dishes
Dish: Broccoli Chickpea Salad

It has been an a busy week and I didn't have anything ready for day 3 of the marathon. I wanted to make simple cucumber sandwiches, but of course, I didn't have any sandwich bread at home. As I was wondering what to make, I remembered seeing this simple broccoli-chickpea salad recipe by Sarah Carey and thought it would be perfect to make for a picnic. 

This salad is very simple to make and is almost a no-cook one, except for steaming the broccoli (and cooking the chickpeas if you are not using the ones from the can), there is not much cooking involved. But for the minimum effort involved, it tasted amazing -- I was snacking on it while making it and then for lunch and then the leftovers for snack.

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Vegetarian Curries from Himachal Pradesh

Channa Madra: This was one of the most popular dishes made for the state of Himachal Pradesh. It is a yogurt based curry made with chickpeas.

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Manipur -- Kelli Chana (Spicy Chickpea snack)

Blogging Marathon# 39 - Indian States: Day 17
State: Manipur
Dish: Kelli Channa

We are going to Manipur, one of the seven sister states in the North Eastern India. Manipuri cuisine is simple, organic and healthy. Dishes are typically spicy foods that use chili pepper rather than garam masalas. Most of the dishes do not use oil for cooking.
The staple diet of Manipur consists of rice, variety of leafy vegetables and fish. Manipuris typically raise vegetables in a kitchen garden and rear fishes in small ponds around their house. They cook dishes based on the seasonal produce and the dishes taste very different from mainland Indian cuisine because of the use of the various aromatic herbs and roots that are unique to the region.
Today's Dish: I found this simple to make Manipuri Street food, Kelli Chana here and even though it had ingredients native to Manipur, I thought I would give it a try. Thankfully this Manipuri blogger described the ingredients and gave some substitutions to the herbs and spices that she used in the dish. I went ahead and made some of my own changes, but the final dish was quite delicious.

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Baked Chickpeas

Blogging Marathon# 36: Week 2/ Day 1
Theme: Travel Food
Dish: Snack - Baked Chickpeas

My theme for the second week of Blogging Marathon# 36 is 'Travel Food' or food that is typically mess free and is easier to take on a trip. To add a little interest to the theme, Valli asked us to make a Snack, Main course and a dessert. So that is what you are going to see for the next three days and I'm going to start with a easy, peasy snack today.

Growing up, we used to travel quite a bit. My dad was a central government employee and he used to get travel allowance every 4 years and being an enthusisatic traveller he made sure that we visited different places every time. He used to elaborately plan these trips and made sure even the minute details were taken care of. He had accomodation everywhere we went and it was so much fun riding the local tourist buses and visiting the touristy locations.

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Falafel (Eggless, Lower fat recipe)

Blogging Marathon# 33: Week 1/ Day 2
Theme: Combo Dishes - Tikkis/ Burgers
Dish: Falafel with Pita

Officially it is Fall season in our neck of woods, but it feels like summer for the past couple of days. Not that I'm complaining, but I had planned to make baked falafel for day 2 of BM# 33 and had to change plans and shallow fry them because I didn't want to turn on the oven. Baked or fried these falafel are crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. We had these for lunchl served with store bought pita bread, creamy tahini sauce and crispy lettuce and cucumber salads. 

I already have a recipe for falafel that has egg in it and I've been looking for a recipe that doesn't have any egg and does not use as much oil. So when I saw this recipe @ Cookie and Kate, I knew I had to try this recipe. It is super simple to put together. Interestingly the recipe uses soaked chickpeas that do not need to be cooked, that saves time and is much more convenient.

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